Tortilla Press and a Bowl

These are two projects that I completed recently; a tortilla press and a turned bowl. Both are made out of the cherry that I recently acquired. These will turn into Christmas presents.

I received a note from my daughter that her husband might like a tortilla press. I said ok – neither of us thought that I would make one and I knew nothing about them. I started Googling around and decided to try to make a wooden one. The main plates are about 8 by 10 inches and an inch thick. Routed recesses were added on the top for easy opening. I used my dovetail techniques that I blogged about to attach both the main and handle hinges. The hinge pins are really 1/4 inch steel bolts with the heads sawn off that are then recessed into the cherry/maple and covered with walnut plugs. Before drilling the hinge pin locations I clamped the top and bottom together with two metal rulers in between. This gave a gap of 3/16 inch and determines the thickness of the tortilla.

I also added maple runners for stability when pressing the handle down, and added a maple pressure plate for the handle.

It works great – just mix water and corn, roll into balls, press, and fry in a dry pan. Nummy. A nice trick is to cut the sides off a Ziploc bag making it into hinged plastic and use it to cover both plates while pressing.

The bowl was another attempt to learn to turn. It came out ok. I took a picture of the side to show the form. It does have a small foot that does not show in the pictures. Boy do I have a lot to learn.

Great looking tortilla press and bowl Steve. I like the way you did the the hinges. That is a very nice gift idea. My Sons love Mexican food. I think I will make one of these for each of them. I doubt anyone in Norway has one.

Hey Mike, I agree, it will make a nice gift. The product might be hard to find – I don’t know. It is Instant Corn Masa Flour which is corn treated with lime. All the grocery stores here now carry it. Pronounced Mah-Say-Cah with the accent on the middle syllable.

Flour tortillas are rolled out with a rolling pin. Kind of like Lefse which is also nummy.Steve

Those are Excellent! projects Steve, I also like those hinges.The bowl turned very nice as well, is that a glue-up of two or more pieces? Thought I was seeing one glue line across the middle hard to tell. Nice work!

Thanks.Yes Nick, there are two pieces so there is a center glue line on the bowl. It is 6 inches in diameter and 3.5 inches tall. The cherry I have is all 3×3 or 3×4 by 7 feet long so I am trying to figure out what to do with it. There are a lot of knots too.